THE BEAUTIFUL GENESIS OF SILENCE !!

Ragini one of my friends left for a short Vipassana course. She proclaimed the ten-day retreat was a detoxification of the body and mind. She would eat organic food, sleep on time and—the most insane part—not speak for ten days. Now, since I have known her for a long time, I knew the last part would be a bit of a stretch for her. But she was convinced she would be able to do it.

?Then she called me five days later, and told me that she had left the programme midway because she couldn’t take the silence. It made her uncomfortable to a level where she started feeling anxious.

?This is a general truth these days, shared by a large number of people. We don’t often pause to evaluate how comfortable we are with silence. In olden times, it would have been easier to handle. I remember noticing my grandparents and other people in my maternal village working for hours with no communication. You can say they were absorbed in the activity and therefore needed no other distraction. But even outside working hours, I saw my grandmother remain quiet for long durations without feeling awkward or anxious.

?Quiet time today, has been replaced by the act of scrolling. As soon as we find a moment of solace, our hand, with some magnetic force, reaches for the cell phone. The thumb starts to scroll in a scholarly fashion. To kill time, we take refuge in the outpouring of information available to us at a click. But there is a bigger question at play -

?What are we escaping from, have we even fully experienced a moment of quietude?

Have we consciously allowed ourselves to be in its presence without apprehensions and frivolous distractions?

I have seen that during meditation, more than the passing thoughts, it’s the pursuit of silence that makes people lifelong learners of the practice. Our brains seem to be wired to constantly think and use sound as a toy. Silence outlines the noise. It provides us a moment of pause.

Many people pick up a book, listen to music or daydream. There is no wrong or right suggestion you can take up for hints on how to fill your silent space. But there is a definite need for each of us to craft our own recipes to deal with silence. In my lectures, in mid-sentence, I sometimes pause and fall silent. I am neither projecting anger nor highlighting frustration or exhaustion. I am just soaking in the classroom, its people, its ambience, and how it makes me feel. But the students often get perturbed and ask if everything is all right. If they have made a mistake. If something has offended me. No one, at first, seems willing to enjoy the unexpected silence with me. When I don’t give in to their demands of reasoning with my quietness, they begin to participate. And collectively, we create a space where we can be together but don’t have to actively eliminate sounds to avoid the damage of their absence.

In my analysis of silence – I have classified ten types of silence - Of course, my interpretation is limited to my experience. There are many shades of silence. It’s not a dish but a buffet.

?1. There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy;

2. The sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face;

3. The fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts;

4. The alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, ‘This . . . this .

5. The musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity;

6. The silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear;

7. The noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it;

8. The baffled silence;

9. The silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos.

10. The silence of awe, which renders us speechless with something of wonder.

During beautiful sunsets, long walks on a beach, road trips in the mountains, and in prayer rooms—it’s easier to find calm and be mindful of it. There is a need to bring the resounding effect of that experience to our everyday routine. To consciously allow silence to permeate into our schedules. So that we don’t have to make small talk, watch unnecessary Internet junk or scroll endlessly, but rather enjoy in its unfolding peace, the luxury of boredom or the adventures of daydreaming.

You can choose to answer the question of silence in the inner or the outer world. In the end I would like to say that I wonder a day will come when man will have to fight noise as inexorably as cholera and the plague, or corona virus.

sudhanshu

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